Cloudless Sky
by hana-akira
Summary: Her eyes were the empty sky, when all the clouds have blown away.


Fandom: Kyou Kara Maou!  
Title: Cloudless Sky  
Author: hana-akira AKA rurichi  
Character: Susanna Julia von Wincott  
Genre: Angst, Tragedy  
Rating: 17+  
Warning: OOC, doesn't-follow-Canon, mention of character death  
Prompt: Eyes, blindness, and the militaristic funerals given to the dead during wartime. Inspired by Maes Hughes' funeral in the manga, Fullmetal Alchemist.  
Summary: Her eyes were the empty sky, when all the clouds have blown away.

A/N: I'm not really sure how I feel exactly about Julia von Wincott as a character. I don't dislike her, but neither do I like her, either. I don't know much about her and the things that I do are dubious and rough at best. Seeing that she's dead and that the only way to know more about her is from other characters' perspectives makes her whole characterization biased so I find it hard to understand her.

—

The day Susanna Julia von Wincott's funeral is held is on a cloudless and gray sky day. There is no sun, but neither is there any rain, and the Mazoku that do attend her funeral don't exactly know how to feel about it. On one hand, it would have suited her as a person if the day had been sunny and bright just like how she was a light in their lives, but then again, since it was a funeral, it would have been more fitting if it had rained instead.

It is neither and so all of those who had attended are stuck in between, unsure whether a fair day or a rainy day would have been better.

Her funeral is rushed, hurried and hastily made because there is still a war going on, fights that still need to be fought, and in the end, this day is just a brief respite from the battle that still needs to be won. Soldiers carry her white coffin upon their shoulders, soldiers who could be spared, and their backs are stiff and rigid as though what they were doing was a standard military drill.

To them, it is the same, whether they are carrying a dead woman or their dead friends, it's all the same. They lay her down as they had laid their friends down the same way and both are still dead and gone.

It is a wake, her funeral. An open casket funeral until one of the soldiers finally put a lid over her and nail the coffin in and then dump her in a hole. She is still in her military uniform, her long light blue hair fanning out, her hands clasped in her lap, a smile daintily playing on her lips, while her eyes are open and unseeing. In this moment, she is like Sleeping Beauty(1) or Snow White(2) except her eyes are open and that she's not sleeping and is, in fact, dead.

She is dead and this is not a fairytale, no matter how peaceful and serene she looks when she is laying down like that in her coffin upon the velvet and cushioned inner covering. She is not sleeping and she is not alive despite the fact that her skin still looks like her normal skin color and that she looks no different from when she was living and breathing even when dead. Her eyes are pale with no pupils and they are like clear crystal, like Cinderella's(3) glass shoes, and they shine like a prism that has an inner light shining within.

There is no priest because in the Mazoku lands there is no such thing and no one says any eulogy for her because there is not enough words to ever express their feelings for her. It will never be enough, whatever they do, so the only solution is to keep silent and pray. There is no priestess, either, because the only priestesses there are are Shinou's priestesses and none of them ever leave his temple. They cannot shed any tears for her, not when there's still a war to finish, but after, after when the fighting's done and they've finally won they'll cry and weep for her along with everyone else who is dead. After, not now.

They clench their hands into fists, some enough that blood draws from their grip, but nothing else because there is nothing to offer the dead except empty condolences and even emptier apologies. She is dead and they are alive and all who are there know that it's not right, but there is nothing they can do, nothing they can fix, and so all they do is keep their vigil and stay still. They want to say sorry, all of them, and ask her to forgive them, but it goes unvoiced and therefore unspoken because all of them know that even if they ask her cold body this question that there will never be an answer given.

They know this and so their hearts are broken.

They pay their respects to her by being there at her funeral and as the coffin at last has its lid slid over and nailed in, the soldiers put her casket into the hole that they have dug just for her, and bury her as though she is a treasure chest full of gold.

She had a heart of gold and all they have left is a heart of stone that's being whittled away bit by bit until there's nothing left.

Her eyes were the empty sky, when all the clouds have blown away: A lifeless sky to match lifeless eyes and there is nothing that any of them can do but go forward and finish the fight. Fight and war and battle and start it all over again. She had died alone while the others had died with their friends by their side and so they must go on and never stop.

After all, she is dead and they are still alive.

—

A/N: Footnotes ahoy!

(1) Sleeping Beauty is the fairytale of a beautiful princess who was cursed at birth by a witch that her parents had snubbed. The story goes that if she pricked her finger on a loom she'll die, which she does, but she just sleeps for eternity instead unless her Prince Charming comes and saves her from eternal sleep because of the gifts from the fairies she was given at birth. The story was named for the fact that the princess looked quite the beauty when she was sleeping.

(2) Snow White is another fairytale in which a vain queen finds out that a beautiful girl is prettier than her and goes after her to kill her. The girl goes on to live with seven dwarves after the woodsman tries to save her and then the queen disguises herself as an old woman to give the girl a poisoned apple, which the girl eats. She then falls into a deep sleep until her Prince Charming comes and wakes her. The story was named for the girl's rather fair skin.

(3) Cinderella is a fairytale about a girl who is treated as a servant by her stepmother and stepsisters. The story goes that there's a ball going on at the local palace and all girls who are fit for marriage are invited to go there so long as they're prettily dressed. Cinderella is helped by her fairy godmother, goes to the ball, dances with Prince Charming, and leaves one of the glass shoes she's wearing accidentally behind. Supposedly, the Prince and her marry at the end. The story was named for the fact that the girl tended to the cinders in the fireplace for her stepfamily.


End file.
